


Snips & Snails

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Childhood Sweethearts, Closeted Character, Coming of Age, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Heartbreak, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midway between Louis’s fourteenth birthday and Harry’s, they fully realized that not everyone behaved the way they did. They never talked about it; Harry noticed the way Louis sat more rigidly beside him in public, like he didn’t want to let his ankle or arm brush against Harry’s lest anyone see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snips & Snails

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. No claim of knowledge or veracity is made towards anyone in the story and no aspersions or claims of character are to be inferred. I have no connection nor permissions from One Direction, X-Factor, Simon Cowell, SyCo Inc., Sony, ITV, or Columbia Records. No libel intended.
> 
> ORIGINALLY POSTED [HERE](http://aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com/94779.html) on 25 February 2012.

** Snips and Snails **

**  
_001._   
**  
Harry first noticed him as he ran out the front doors his third day at Gate School -- loosening his tie, flying down the sidewalk towards the bend in the road that would take him to the tube station home where Mum would be waiting, always sympathetic, with biscuits and cream tea.

The other boy was standing near the gate with his red uniform jacket tied around his waist, the collar scuffing the ground. He lifted a cigarette to his lips.

_That’s not lit_ , Harry realized, and failed to notice he was staring.

“Got a problem?” the boy called.

“I’ve got matches.”

**_002._**  
Louis liked Harry right away because he was curious about everything, and had never really done anything. Harry had matches because he liked the way cigarettes smelled, but he’d never smoked. He collected bottles of his stepdad’s beer, but never drank them. On their way to the park that afternoon, Harry wandered off every few feet to pick something up: a shiny rock or an interesting bug or a movie stub in the gutter.

“Why’d’you keep those things?” Louis asked, watching the curly-haired boy, Gate School tie on like a ninja sash around his head.

Louis was very curious about Harry.

**_003._**  
Louis started paying Gemma 42p a day to mind Lottie at the park while he and Harry climbed off into the grasses to do things. 

One day they poured salt on a slug they found and watched it fizz away.

“I feel bad,” Harry said, watching the thing die.

“You’re always feeling things,” Louis muttered, picking up a twig and poking the slug. 

“Is that a bad thing?” Harry asked, sitting back to shred a dry leaf.

“No.” Louis shrugged. “That’s just you.”

“I wonder sometimes if I feel too much.”

Louis patted Harry’s knee and let his hand linger.

**_004._**  
Three months later, when Louis was thirteen and _older_ , Harry seemed to ask his advice on everything.

_Louis, how’d’you sneak pornography on the internet?_

_Louis, what’d’you’do when someone wants to beat you up?_

_Louis, if I let Allegra cheat off my maths, will she like me?_

“Louis,” he started one afternoon as they sat in an icy tree, “Have I told you I’ve got a date on Saturday?”

“That’s good.”

Harry looked down at his hands. “Louis… how’d’you kiss a girl?”

Louis’ brow furrowed. He leaned across the branch and pressed his mouth to Harry’s. He tasted like unlit tobacco and sugar.

**_005._**  
Months passed. Summertime came. 

Their days passed long and full of sunburned white skin as they trawled outdoors all day and spent evenings skulking around clubs trying to learn pulling techniques from the older boys.

Louis loved Harry in the summertime because it turned out he worried a bit less, even when they scorched off their eyebrows making flamethrowers with Gemma’s hairspray. 

Harry loved the freckles that formed on Louis’ nose, and once they took whiskey shots like they’d seen Mark do and Louis threw up and cried, and Harry laid Louis’ head across his lap and pet his hair.

**_006._**  
Early into Year Eight, just when the air turned cold enough to wear jumpers again, Harry got a nighttime date – a real date – with a girl from his school. He had her bring a friend along for Louis, and both boys heard her complaining that Flick got “the fit one” and she was “stuck with the pouf.”

“You’re not a pouf,” Harry whispered reassuringly as they returned to the girls.

Louis was glum the rest of the night.

After they walked the girls home, Harry pulled Louis into an alley between streets and kissed him until he was smiling again.

**_007._**  
Midway between Louis’ fourteenth birthday and Harry’s, they fully realized that not everyone behaved the way they did.

They never talked about it; Harry noticed the way Louis sat more rigidly beside him in public, like he didn’t want to let his ankle or arm brush against Harry’s lest anyone see.

Louis watched as Harry withdrew into himself, and he felt guilty because he knew it was his fault but he couldn’t – 

There was nothing he could do to make it better.

Finally one rainy Saturday Harry broke down sobbing, and Louis held him against his shoulder and let him cry.

**_008._**  
They had a horrible row on Liam’s fifteenth birthday, out in the backyard right in the midst of his party. Harry had found Louis in the hall cupboard with a girl’s hand down his trousers, and he was so angry that he threw a lamp at them and it shattered against the wall.

Louis dragged Harry outside to avoid the stares and whispers.

“What the hell are you playing at?” he shouted, shoving Harry back into an old oak tree.

“Me? What the fuck kind of best friend goes off and fucks some random in the fucking coats cupboard?”

Harry and Louis were locked in as fierce a grapple as either boy had ever been in, not exactly being in prizefighting shape, and the bark of the tree and slippery squish of the August mud between its roots tripped and tumbled them until they were rolling in the prickly grass behind the trunk of the old tree, mouths and fists and legs and hips locked together until finally Louis’ hand was inside Harry’s trousers and _Harry_ was all over him and both pairs of light, wide eyes were bright.

“Are you _bloody_ happy now?” Louis spat, kissing Harry’s cheek.

“Yes.”

**_009._**  
Harry really never meant to mind so much when Louis turned sixteen and got less shy. It was good for his friend to be able to speak to more people than just Liam and Zayn and Niall and Gemma, and it was great for him that he could bring his own girls on dates, girls who didn’t call him a pouf.

But he didn’t like it when his boyfriend would come back from obscured hallways with the wet eyes he knew so well and some girl on his arm.

He never even realized when he started thinking the word “boyfriend.”

**_010._**  
Harry knew Louis’d had sex with a girl at Zayn’s party two weeks before.

Louis hadn’t told him.

In fact, Louis had very pointedly not told him, because he had to know that Harry knew, and that Harry knew he knew that Harry knew, and even when Harry tried to trick him into saying something, he never did.

“I don’t know what you’re on about, mate,” he said, sipping on a Castle Elephant, glaring daggers at Harry for talking about things in front of Niall and Cher.

Later, Louis almost killed himself climbing in through Harry’s bedroom window to apologize.

“Why don’t you trust me anymore?” Harry asked quietly, not turning over in his bed to face the apparition in the curtains.

“I do trust you,” Louis whispered fervently, crossing to the front of the twin bed. He knelt and put his forehead to Harry’s. “You are the person I trust most; you know that.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me yourself?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to know.”

“I’d rather know from you than hear about how ‘Tomlinson is getting his end away with that girl Eleanor in Mrs. Malik’s bed.’”

Louis closed his eyes. “I’m sorta shit.”

**_011._**  
“Got any matches?”

“Course I do, fuckwit,” Harry slurred, producing a red-striped matchbook from his back pocket. Zayn lit his cigarette and shook out the charred match, dropping it to the slushy ground; Louis crushed it with the heel of his trainer.

“Christ, it’s cold,” Louis remarked, moving a little closer to Harry – not too close.

“’S’not bad,” Harry giggled, slinging an arm over Louis’ shoulders.

Louis shrugged away.

“Harry Styles? Is that you?”

Harry turned around a little too quickly for his inebriated state and pitched forward, catching himself on Caroline Flack, the supermodel next door, with his hands right bullseye on her tits.

Louis winced.

Caroline laughed. “Yes, I definitely thought that was you.” She smiled at Harry, who gaped, and then jumped as he realized his hands were still on Caroline’s chest. Caroline laughed. “Listen, I’ve been hoping to see you around…” 

She slid her hand along his forearm until her fingers curled around his.

Behind Harry, forgotten in the presence of the girl Harry never thought would know his name, Louis’ stomach clenched.

“It looks like you’ve had quite enough party for tonight,” Caroline said, taking a step backward and bringing Harry away from the eaves of The Brown Dog. “Why don’t you come back to my flat for a brew and… dessert?”

Louis swallowed, but didn’t say a word.

What could he say?

Harry nodded like an imbecile. “Yeah! Yeah, sure. Yeah, just let me – I’m here with – give me just a moment.”

Caroline smiled and stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek, full of promise.

Harry tottered back to Louis and bent just close enough to murmur, “Are you okay if I – ”

Louis interrupted, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the snow. “It’s fine, Hazz. You know?” 

His blue eyes met Harry’s and he was grateful for how drunk and stupid Harry was right now, because even after years Harry was little more than a messy knot of empathetic feelings otherwise. “You’re not a pouf.”

[](http://statcounter.com/free-web-stats/)


End file.
